Ghost hunts in the north

Norton Priory is a historic site in Norton, Runcorn, Cheshire, England, comprising the remains of an abbey complex dating from the 12th to 16th centuries and an 18th-century country house; it is now a museum. The remains are scheduled ancient monuments and are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. They are considered to be the most important monastic remains in Cheshire. The priory was established as an Augustinian foundation in the 12th century and was raised to the status of an abbey in 1391.

The abbey was closed in 1536 as part of the dissolution of the monasteries. Nine years later, the surviving structures, together with the manor of Norton, were purchased by Sir Richard Brooke, who built a Tudor house on the site, incorporating part of the abbey. This was replaced in the 18th century by a Georgian house.

The Brooke family left the house in 1921, and it was partially demolished in 1928. Norton Priory Museum & Gardens is Europe’s most excavated monastic site, a scheduled monument, and the medieval Undercroft is a Grade 1 listed building. On the night, you will explore over 900 years of history and perform paranormal experiments alongside ancient bones that have been excavated from the site.

Paranormal nights in the past have proved to be very active; dark shadows have been seen roaming around the building, and the grounds and footsteps are often heard here. Electronic voice phenomenon activities have proved very interesting, with strange disembodied voices and interactions with many of the paranormal trigger objects, particularly around some of the ancient artefacts on display here. On a ghost hunt at Norton Priory, will you brave the darkness into the unknown?

Thackray Museum of Medicine is housed on the site of the Leeds Union Workhouse. Opened in 1861 and designed and built by workhouse architects Perkins and Backhouse, the building housed 784 paupers at its opening.

It is unlikely that children were present in this workhouse, as the Moral and Industrial Training school, built a few years before, was designed to educate poor children in shoe-making.

The workhouse was a place of hardship, and hard labour would have taken place in the adjoining yards.

The building had its own custom-built chapel to instil moral and religious behaviour in all inmates. Women and men were housed separately, and all evidence of former lives was disregarded on entry to the building. Families were split up, clothes were changed for dull, prison-like uniforms, and there was little hope of salvation.

The workhouse had an infirmary building to the rear, now part of St James’s Hospital. This had one doctor to care for all workhouse inmates and infirmary inmates. Infirmary staff to help the doctor were sought from the able-bodied inmates from the workhouse, so care was often non-specialist and poor.

The workhouse master and matron would have lived in a house on the workhouse grounds. It is thought that the building that was the Wainwright education centre in the Thackray Museum of Medicine was the top floor of the Master’s home. It was attached to the workhouse via a corridor, which was added later in the development of the site.

Over the years, the workhouse grew, and new infirmary wings were built to accommodate the large number of sick people who needed to be admitted for free healthcare. By 1870, the infirmary was full to bursting, and the Poor Law Board of Guardians (who gathered funds to erect the workhouse initially) built more external wings to allow more people access to healthcare.

In 1906, more new buildings were added to the site to allow extensions, including kitchens, stores, sick beds, and sewing rooms.

In the advent of war in 1915, the Guardians offered the workhouse and infirmary buildings to the war
effort, and the main building (the museum) became the East Leeds War Hospital. During this time, the king visited the soldiers and spoke to each wounded soldier. Soldiers were admitted for a variety of reasons, and it is thought many may not have survived their wounds. Sir Berkley Moynihan, an eminent surgeon of the age, undertook care in the hospital at this time.

In 1925, the Poor Law Infirmary in Beckett Street was renamed St James’s Hospital (in honour of Dr James Allen and Mr James Ford, who had undertaken many improvements on the site). The change in name and status meant new nurses came to work here, and a nurses’ wing was opened to house them. The hospital raised funds for an electric-lit operating theatre and many other modern amenities.

When the National Health Service came into being in 1948, the workhouse building blended into the hospital.

The Thackray Museum building was used as the geriatric ward for many years until, in the early 1990s, it became evident that it was no longer fit for purpose. Thackray Museum of Medicine took over the building, which was well placed to house the wonderful collection of surgical instruments dating from Roman times to the present day.

A high level of paranormal activity has been witnessed here: dark figures roaming around the building, poltergeist activity, loud footsteps, whispers, crying, rapid drops in temperature, and people being touched and grabbed by unseen hands. There have been many interactions with all the paranormal electronics, high spikes on K11 meters, and voices captured on EVPs (electronic voice phenomena). Without any doubt, this is one location that has provided us with many unexplainable experiences.

What will you experience in the dead of night of your haunted adventure at Thackray Medical Museum?

Borwick Hall is a grade 1 listed 16th-century manor house in Borwick, Lancashire. The manor of Borwick is mentioned in the doomsday book, the oldest parts of the building which are still in existence date from the 14th century when a pele tower was built on the site to protect people and cattle from marauding scots.  The tower was then extended into a manor house in the early 1590s by the Bindloss family, a wealthy dynasty of Kendal clothiers, who added the impressive gatehouse and the adjacent stable block for the pack-horses which carried Kendal cloth south to London.

By the early 19th century, the hall fell into a state of disrepair. The manor was only repaired in the 1910s when it was leased to a music critic, who died there in 1936. During the Second World War, the hall was used as a military base. The estate was then sold to the Lancashire Youth Club Association and later passed into the ownership of the Lancashire County Council. The hall was also used for exterior shots for the TV program Ghosts of Motley Hall.

With this being such a historic site, there is no surprise that there are so many reports of paranormal activity; it is said that there is a spirit of a female in one of the bedrooms on the third floor, although this is where her presence is felt the most she is also said to walk the entire manor.

Visitors and staff have reported hearing cries, moans and the sounds of talking in the distance when nobody else is in the building. There is also a corridor in the manor house, known as the spooky corridor, which leaves you feeling disorientated. While our team was in this corridor, one of the bedroom doors opened and closed, followed by a blast of cold air.  Many also report seeing dark shadows roaming the corridors and being touched by unseen hands. Many visitors refuse to stay in one room, in particular, due to the spooky goings that previous guests have experienced.

It was near enough to continue his business on the quayside but rural and healthy for the children. And so began the life-long involvement that three successive generations of the same family had with the house called Bensham Grove. All belonging to a well-respected Quaker family, Joshua, Joseph, and Robert Spence Watson lived with their families almost continually at Bensham Grove until 1919, when Elizabeth died and bequeathed the house.

Each generation enlarged and improved the house, creating an eclectic mix of Regency and Victorian features. Elizabeth Spence Watson was a moving light on women’s rights and education, helping the poor of Gateshead in many ways. Robert and Elizabeth, at home in Bensham Grove, became host to various visitors, including artists, craftsmen, educationalists, reformers, poets, and politicians. On the death of the Spence Watsons, Bensham Grove became an Educational Settlement doing much work during the Depression in the thirties.

It is still a centre for Adult Education and a busy community centre. In later years, when the house was donated to the Bensham Community as a Centre of Learning, it became known as the Bensham Settlement. Although it has undergone some inevitable changes, the essence of the house remains. It is easy to picture the children playing in the garden or visualise the formal dinners where distinguished guests from all walks of life were present.

A Grade 2-listed building, the house still boasts many features such as stained glass windows, fireplaces, tiles and decorated ceilings. Many of these were fashionable then and had strong Arts and Crafts themes. William Morris and some Pre-Raphaelite painters were welcome visitors, and their influence can still be felt in the rooms. Bensham Grove, to this day, still follows their principles in promoting and improving life in the Bensham Community.

There are many spooky happenings at Bensham, particularly from a female spirit, Elizabeth Spence Watson. Dark shadows are seen moving around the building, rapid drops in temperature, disembodied voices, and the sounds of children’s voices and footsteps. You will get to investigate the areas of the building where the most paranormal activity has been witnessed, which are over three floors, including the attic, which has never been modernised.

Armley Mills is located in Leeds, Yorkshire; the earliest record of Armley Mills dates from the middle of the sixteenth century when local clothier Richard Booth leased ‘Armley Millnes’ from Henry Saville. A document of 1707 describes them as fulling mills. In 1788, the mills were expanded and were equipped with five waterwheels driving eighteen fulling stocks. Fulling was a necessary but dirty process where woven wool was felted. The bundles of cloth are hit repeatedly by large hammers, the fulling stocks, while soaked in water, urine and a clay known as Fuller’s earth. The urine, a source of ammonia, was collected from neighbouring houses, which specially saved it for this purpose.

In 1788, the mills were expanded into the world’s largest woollen mill. In 1804/1805, the mills were sold but burned down. The early mills were fire hazards, the fibres in the air igniting and setting fire to the flammable structure. Gott rebuilt the mill using fireproof principles: the mill structure survives, and it is this structure that has achieved a grade II* listing.

By 1907, part of the mill had been let out to tenants. The woollen clothing manufacturers Bentley and Tempest took over the mill. The mill closed its doors in 1971, a victim of changing technology, a loss of market, and the prevailing economic conditions. It was sold to Leeds City Council, which re-opened it as a museum of industry in 1982.

Many who worked here were subject to very harsh living and working conditions, and some lost their lives.

This may explain why Armley Mills is rife with unexplained events and is well known for being extremely haunted. Many visitors have experienced many spooky happenings at this location; some have reported seeing full apparitions that, upon investigating, have vanished. There are reports of dark shadows moving around many areas of the building, including disembodied voices along with the sounds of heavy footsteps.

Many report smelling burning in the parts of the building, including the smell of old tobacco smoke. What will you discover on your haunted adventure at this truly haunted building, to which we give you exclusive access until the early hours?

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